Love
by Boriqua-chan
Summary: Because no character in Naruto is good enough for my Itachi-kun, I made one up. And modeled her after me. Love doesn't happen quickly, but rather in small bursts. ItaOC. One-shots.
1. Let Them Meet

**These are short one-shots of Luisanna and Itachi; if you have read _Kidnapping_, you are familiar with my OC Luisanna. If you haven't please do. I write these in my spare time on my iPod when I really can't do anything else. You gotta love Notes, am I right? So anywho, these are _one-shots_, they are related to each other but are not exactly in direct order; I am free to continue or discontinue it because it is _not_ a chapter story, but a bunch of one-shots with the same two characters. I repeat: _ONE-SHOTS!_ Do not beg me to continue because that'll discourage me with these. I love to hear that in chapter stories the "please continue" but if you do that with this one, I'll feel obligated to make it a chapter story and I don't want to do that; I just want a book of one-shots. Giving me your favorite parts, what you liked about it, ect. will make me feel very happy.**

**Thanks for respecting my wishes. R&R!**

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><p>Serving her usual table, Luisanna gave the two a fake smile. A man with glowing red eyes, centered with a pupil and what an outsider such as she could only describe as three extra pupils, sat cross-legged; his partner, sharklike in every way, glared at the man. "Make up your mind," the shark-man growled through sharp teeth. Luisanna didn't let his appearance scare her.<p>

"Have you not yet decided then?" the Puerto Rican girl asked in her rounded and odd Japanese.

The man with long navy-colored hair glance his glowing eyes up to his server and gave her a twitch of his beautiful lips. He was amazing, Luisanna'd have to admit; he had gorgeous-shaped eyes, an amazing cut to his strong-looking jaw, beautifully shaped lips, and a wonderful cut to his almost not there smile, which had gone as quickly as it twitched up. "We have," he said in his rich, deep voice. Luisanna almost dropped her pen to the floor at its sexiness. Instead she just nodded and gripped her pen tighter, waiting for the order. "I'll have the black tea, if you don't mind…" The man trailed off, waiting for a name.

Luisanna gasped; she knew she had given them her name when she first sat them. "Luisanna, Luisanna Sanchez-Ramos," she said, blinking at the fact that she had given him her whole name. She never did that! She was smarter than that! Still, having the man know her surname felt right.

"You aren't from here, are you, Luisanna-chan?" the man asked, a soft tone to his voice. It was strange. The shape of his eyes, the crease of his smile, the redness of his orbs, the deep sweetness of his voice—they all had a bad-boy quality to them; he didn't seem the type to ask or even care about something as simple as a servant's name.

Luisanna offered a shy smile. "Is it that obvious?" she asked, gaining more confidence as the man's red eyes dimmed a shade.

The navy-haired man offered a small chuckle. "You have a Spanish accent," he explained grinningly.

"Well," Luisanna started, grinning the same grin that was evident in the man's voice, "I am Puerto Rican. I'm trying hard, Japanese is just harder to learn than English."

This time, the man offered a small two-sided grin that left the waitress speechless for a second; it was gone as soon as it appeared, but it was beautiful nonetheless. "So they say. Are you trilingual then?"

Luisanna nodded. "Actually, quad-lingual; Spanish, sarcasm, English, and Japanese in that exact order," she said, holding back another smile at the man's interest.

"Amazing," the man said in his smiling voice. "You're smart enough to be an Uchiha."

Luisanna pursed her lips. "I don't know what that means," she decided, "but I'm going to take it as a complement."

The smiled and it lasted longer than two seconds. It lit his face up so much that the waitress thought the wrinkles on his cheeks were laugh-lines; he looked too young for them to be anything else. He was just a few years older than her. Maybe he was seventeen or eighteen to her fifteen. "Feel free to," he chuckled. Luisanna decided that it was meant as a complement. She smiled again and sighed, remembering she was working.

"And what'll you have, sir?" she asked, turning to the shark-man that had waited in annoyed silence.

"Water."

Luisanna nodded, pushing the sleeves up on her bothersome green kimono. "I'll be right back." She bowed to her customers respectfully just as Yū had taught her and walked away. Only to be stopped by a hand, warm and comforting, on her wrist. She turned back, curious; most people would have called her name instead of stopping her themselves. "Yes?" she asked, smiling when she noticed that it was the man with the dark navy hair that had stopped her. He seemed so kind, even with his bad-boy attitude. Damn her and her attraction to bad-boys.

"My name is Uchiha Itachi, and I'd like to teach you Japanese over a proper dinner," he said, his face straight and his eyes, red when she first saw him, black. Luisanna smiled and nodded. "When does your shift end?"

"Five," the Puerto Rican said with a smile.

"I'll be around at five then."

"I'll be waiting," she said winningly. "Now, in the meanwhile, I have teas to bring."

They smiled at each other, the strange man's slightly choppier with that same bad-boy edge. Then he let her go and returned to his seat, where the shark-man sat smirking. Luisanna held in a girlish squeal.

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><p><strong>There you are. How they met. R&amp;R!<strong>


	2. Uchiha Massacare

Her heart pumped blood faster than ever before. Her mind couldn't stop racing. She could hardly breathe. Her legs felt both sprained and flexible from what they had been twisted to do. Her core throbbed. She gasped, out of air, and fell onto Itachi's chest; his heart was beating like racing horses' hooves. Her dark brown eyes glanced at the clothes in the corner of the room—it was a very lived-in room with marks of Itachi's being here, accompanied by a black robe with red clouds on a peg near a desk—and sighed, smiling still.

"An-chan…An-chan…An-chan," he kept repeating breathlessly, yanking her short black hair back roughly while tracing her naked breast with the other. He was an animal just seconds ago, now he was tiered. "An-chan…An-chan…An-chan."

Luisanna gritted her teeth at the wonderfully painful way he had of touching her hair. She reached over to the long navy-colored hair that was splayed on the other side of his chest in knots. Gingerly, she began to unknot them, surprised when she found traces of her own hair tangled with his. "'Tachi… God, Itachi…" she said, reviling in the pull of her hair. He was the only one she ever let touch it. And God, did its mistreatment feel good! "Do you think I'll be able to walk tomorrow? You know I have work tomorrow," she said, grinning.

Itachi copied her grin with a smirk of his own, running his hands through her roots before switching his other hand to her flat stomach. "Call in sick," he suggested, his eyelids fluttering. "Tell them you got meat poisoning."

Luisanna opened her eyes wide and lifted herself from his chest, blankets falling to her hips. "Did my boyfriend just make a dirty joke?" she asked, regaining her breath, only for it to be dragged back out of her by the sound of Itachi's animalistic chuckle. "Who are you and what have you done to Uchiha Itachi! Speak now or I'll grab one of his kunai! I know where he keeps them!" Her joke was left limping by the fact that her voice was almost gone and that her throat hurt from yelling and that she was sore—really really sore.

Still, the eldest Uchiha laughed dryly. "He did," Itachi answered, "and you don't."

Luisanna pursed her lips. Defeatedly, she sighed, "I know," with a frown. "You've got to teach me how to use one of those. They rock. Did you know that my dad collected these things—kunai, shurukin, swords, knives—all of them?"

"Did he?" Itachi yawned, sleepy. He wanted to sleep, but he also wanted to hear his An's voice. "Why?"

Luisanna yawned as well. "Because he liked the way they looked; he sucked at using them though. I didn't want to learn from him." She traced her boyfriend's sculpted chest and planted a warm kiss on his collarbone; Itachi gave a soft shudder at Luisanna's silky lips.

"Figures, from what you've told me about him."

Luisanna smiled and dug her face further into his chest. "I've told you about my parents. I haven't heard anything about yours," she commented, feeling kind of bad about it. She had made him sit through a year of her family history, but he had never opened his mouth to talk about his. She frowned and breathed in Itachi's bittersweet smell of sweat, sex, and spice.

Itachi traced the bones on Luisanna's back, marveling at how his fingers fit around her bones. He kissed her forehead, which was covered in sweat and hair, and said, "You wouldn't like them—well, maybe my mother. She was like you…less vulgar maybe."

"Vulgar? You didn't seem to mind a few minutes ago!" she gasped, pretending to be angry.

He chuckled. "I don't. In fact, I love it," he laughed. Then he said, "She was named Mikoto. My father—"

"Was…? What happened?"

Itachi hesitated. This was the one secret he has tried so hard to keep from her; keeping secrets from his An was a hard thing to do. She knew everything. He had told her everything. From the fact that his brother was trying to kill him to the fact that he was from enemy ninja named the Akasuki to the fact that he had killed his last lover to gain a better Sharingan. Through all of that, she had been shocked, but she had never left him. That was what had led them to this place; to his small bed in his small room; to his love for her. But Luisanna was big on family, she loved family, lived for her family, she would even kill for her family. He was afraid that she would leave him. He didn't want that. If he only had a few years left, he wanted to spend them with her. But this would scare her away.

"Remember I told you about Konoha?" he asked, continuing when she nodded. "And how the Elders were doing a fine job of running it and how my family wanted to overthrow it because of a matter of pride, how my clan was going to endanger the lives of millions?"

"Yes."

"I was a Konoha ANBU at thirteen if I remember correctly; the only Uchiha ANBU they had. My clan was a strong clan, a couple thousand large. They were blinded with pride and what they thought belonged to them. If they overtook Konoha millions would suffer. The Elders wanted to make sure they didn't; they way in which they did it was cruel—"

"What does this have to—"

Itachi silenced her with a kiss on her forehead and a quite shush. "Because, An-chan," he whispered, gripping the Puerto Rican's shoulder tightly and fearfully, as if she might go away; Luisanna noticed this with fright, "they had me do it. They had me kill them all. I killed my family."

"But your brother—"

"I got away with letting Sasuke live by leaving before I could get caught." Why was this so painful? He could hardly get the words out. Itachi continued, "That's why I joined the Akasuki, because I had betrayed everyone I knew; there was nothing left to do but betray the thing that deserved it the most: Konoha."

Luisanna lay shocked. "Send a thirteen-year-old boy to kill his own family… Papito, it wasn't your fault. If anything, it was their fault—those…those Elders…" Itachi could hear the tears at her eyes in her voice. "You were only thirteen, you didn't know better. You were taught to obey orders and not question them, right?"

Itachi nodded.

"What about your brother? Does he know this?" she asked, desperately wanted to make Sasuke the bad guy. If Sasuke knew, then the boy—roughly thirteen now, raised no doubt by the same "monkey do, monkey no ask" ideas—would have no reason to come after his older brother other than a blank, childish ignorance.

Itachi frowned, removing his hands her stomach and hair and dimpling her under him, all tiredness from his body gone. "No," he said, leaning over Luisanna's lean body. He kissed her neck, hoping to deter her. Her neck was her weak spot. But the Puerto Rican refused to give him the moan he so terribly wanted.

"Why haven't you told him? Ita—" It had been a bad idea to open her mouth; a sweet moan escaped her as Itachi left his mark.

"Be quite and enjoy this," the Uchiha ordered, Luisanna's usual rowdiness and impatience rubbing off on him. He bit down on the junction of her neck and smirked at his An's gasp.

He began his animalistic lovemaking again. But, as good as his hands on her body felt, as good as he felt inside her, as good as he was, she kept thinking of a thirteen-year-old Itachi covered in his family's blood, crying as he left his village without a glance back.

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><p><strong>There we go, short two, in which Itachi tells her about his family. R&amp;R<strong>


	3. Suspecting Mi

**A third one. Even though none of you read it. I like writing them, so...**

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><p>Itachi grinned across the room at his An-chan, watching as she glared at everyone and anyone who came within a three-yard radius to either him or her. It was a very private place they were at; a place inhabited and protected by the Akasuki. Women and men had to be in separate lines and checked slowly. Only those who were actually a part of the organization did not have to be checked, though their companions did. And so, Itachi watched as the love of his life glared death at the world from a safe corner. Although, with all the side-looks and leering jeers the idiot girls near him were giving, Itachi wondered if even a Akasuki-protected, weapon-removed, all-dangers-evoided-or-fixed club was safe from the wrath of a jealousy-prone, sharp-mouthed, clawed seventeen-year-old Luisanna. As the Uchiha watched the Puerto Rican, he was frightened—and a bit proud—to say that no, not even DenkiMachi's club Cloud Nine—which was just a done-up base disguised so that no one would actually suspect it—was safe from Luisanna.<p>

"Hey," the sound of some suicidal girl rang in his ears. Itachi smiled widely at the way his An-chan's brown-eyed glare flamed with open hate. But, alas, the interrupting girl thought the smile was for her and took it upon herself to come closer. "Oh, that's a pretty smile. Is it for me, stranger?"

Itachi's smile slipped off; his eyes turned Sharingan red. He turned from his An-chan to the girl next to him, making sure glares of death hit the girl from both sides—him and Luisanna.

The girl, a blonde with glowing green eyes that seemed about nineteen was taken aback by the sudden hate. "Huh? Can I ask your name, stranger?"

"Ask away. But I think I'll answer for him, if you don't mind." Itachi smiled his dazzling smile at the sound of Luisanna's voice. "He does not speak much, but he's a real sweetheart."

"Huh?" the girl asked in shock at the younger woman's appearance. "Oh. Is he your older brother? Let him speak."

Luisanna swallowed in anger. She let out a long sigh and leaned against the wall next to her boyfriend. "What's yours?" she asked instead of answering an naïve question like that—she and Itachi looked nothing alike.

"My what?" the blonde asked, her eyes on the smile that her mystery man was sending the short girl. He was so much taller than her!

"Your name." Luisanna grinned the smile that had Itachi glowing with pride and fear. What idiot wouldn't fear this sickeningly sweet and innocent smile? It screamed that something was up."In Japan, don't you give your name first before asking for another's? I may be wrong, but that's how I was taught, right, Itachi?"

Itachi laughed his prize-winning laugh. "Yes, An-chan."

"See?" Luisanna grinned. "What is yours?"

"Kagura—my name is Kagura, disrespectful child," the blonde said, glaring.

"Oh, Itachi," Luisanna said sadly, "Kagura's upsetting my stomach. Will you take care of that please? "

Itachi laughed and pulled Luisanna from the wall next to him onto his chest. "My poor babe," he whispered into her hair. "The suicidal girl is bad for you, isn't she?" The teasing was meant to make Kagura leave. It did just that, making her walk away with her

"She is bad for the baby too, Itachi…" Luisanna muttered into her boyfriend's chest.

She heard Itachi's heart skip three beats. "Ba—baby?"

Luisanna swallowed. "Baby," she confirmed. She patted her stomach to further prove the fact. "Three…three months, Itachi-kun…" She had picked up the suffix when they had been explained at the collage; now she used it whenever she was scared or unsure.

Luisanna heard Itachi's heart skip past another three beats as he held her tighter. The sudden racket that was going on in the background seemed unimportant; the woman that had led up to this seemed silly. All that mattered now was the reaction of a soon-to-be father. "An-chan," he murmured into the short woman's hair. His shaking breath felt warm on her scalp. Luisanna held herself closer into Itachi's chest, hiding. It took a lot to scare her—truly, it did—but now, she was very much afraid of how the eldest Uchiha would take in the fact that he was going to be a father. The fact that he planned on dying soon was a factor to fear. "What do you think she should be named?"

"She?" the Puerto Rican asked, holding her breath no longer. "I think my little baby is a boy."

Itachi laughed. He started to lead her out of the noise of club and into the streets of DenkiMachi. "It's a girl," Itachi said, "and her name will be…" The Uchiha thought for a second. "Mi, which means beautiful, because she's going to look just like her mother."

Luisanna laughed, clinging lightly to Itachi's strong arm as it wrapped around her waist. "You are far too kind to me, 'Tachi, considering you can see less than I can," she grinned. She laughed again briefly. "But no," Luisanna decided, serious, "he's going to look like his father, funny nose-wrinkles and everything."

Itachi lifted his free hand to touch his nose.

"Aw, don't be like Kisame!" the pregnant girl begged. "They make you look even sexier," she insisted, pulling herself on her tiptoes—an amazing accomplishment when walking—to kiss Itachi's slender cheek.

Itachi leaned into the girl's lips, then gave a smirk when it was over. "Thank you."

Luisanna laughed, holding the father of her unborn child close.

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><p><strong>Yeah, I stole Kagura's name from InuYasha. But I'm giving it credit, so its not stolen. R&amp;R!<strong>


	4. Papi

"So…" Luisanna wondered, her brown eyes crossing in concentration. She glared ruthlessly at the kunai in her hands, fixing her stance slightly. Her legs were spread and bent, feet dug into the ground as she pouted. She really hated not being able to do this naturally. She'd been a natural at karate—she got board and quit of course, but that was beside the point—so why couldn't she hold a simple kunai, for the love of god? "Like this?"

The side of Itachi's foot hit the outside of Luisanna's, silently telling her to close her stance a bit. He took a quick glance at the weapon in her hand and nodded.

"Awesomeness!" the Puerto Rican shouted. "But—"

"Your aim is horrible," Itachi finished her sentence with a smirk. "You'd be better with the old fashioned bow and arrow."

Luisanna scowled. "Why are you so cruel to me, 'Tachi?" she whined playfully. Her scowl slipped away to show the hidden grin under it.

"Yes, 'Tachi," a voice from behind teased. In his voice there was a smile that the shark-man would never show. "Why are you so cruel to Luisanna-chan?"

With a grin over her shoulder to Kisame, who leaned against the doorframe of the small two-bedroom house, Luisanna shouted, "Thank you, Kisame! See—_he_ understands!"

Itachi snorted. "He's making fun of both of us," he said. His hand lifted her elbow, which had slipped down when she looked over her shoulder, to the correct place. "Now. Close one eye. Aim. Shoot."

Luisanna winced. Her aim really sucked. She'd aimed for the little target that Itachi has set up when they started this; instead it was somehow flying over her shoulder and at Kisame. Not good. Shark-man was not nice-man when angered. "Ay, Dios," she said in Spanish as she turned around to face him. And then in Japanese, "Kisame! I am so sorry!

Kisame's blue nose scrunched and he snorted. As if an untrained girl who's only defenses were her loudmouthed nature and her boyfriend could hurt /him/, one of the Akasuki's strongest!

"Gee, sorry for worrying," Luisanna scowled. "Hope you drown in the ocean, blue-guy."

This time Kisame growled.

"I'm just teasing, Kisame!" Itachi's girlfriend wailed, a smirk—à la Itachi—on her face. Her brown eyes shined with happiness. And then she remembered the kunai that had sailed behind her. She turned to Itachi. "My aim _sucks_, 'Tachi!"

Itachi smirked. "So you have proven," he said, a laugh hidden in his words. His fingers wrap around Luisanna's fingers; without so much as jostling the Puerto Rican's grip, he managed to take it out of her fingers. "You are more dangerous with a sharp object than I could ever hope to be."

"I…I don't…" Luisanna pouts, frowning at the kunai that now rested in her boyfriend's steady grip. "Is that a complement?"

Itachi's smirk grew, stretching into a smile saved especially for his An. "No, not at all," he admitted, taking his own stance. The kunai whizzed past her in a straight line, embedding itself deftly in the makeshift target.

"You are so kind, Papi."

Kisame took this as his cue to annoy. "Isn't Papi sweet?"

Luisanna's face puckered as if she'd just tasted something sour. Her lips curled. Her brown eyes gleamed. And then the war inside her fell apart and she started laughing—doubling over herself and laughing as if she couldn't control herself. Her laughter echoed in the small neighborhood.

Itachi looked at her as if she were crazier than he already thought. Kisame just stared, unfeeling, as he waited out the storm.

"Kis—Kis— Oh, sweet Jesus, Kisame! You just…you just—" Another torrent of giggling before Luisanna could speak again. "I always knew there was something fruity about you, Kiss. But I didn't think it was that serious! Am I going to have to fight you for Itachi?"

Kisame twitched. His blue skin curled and his left eye wouldn't go back to normal. "What?"

"You just called Itachi your daddy."

"I just _what_?"

"Paws off, fish-face!" Luisana said, laughing as she turned to hug Itachi. "This sexy beast? Es mío. Mine, man."

Kisame face-palmed.

Itachi pulled in his girlfriend, hands at her waist as he curled over her body, for a kiss. Luisanna cupped Itachi's cheek and neck, standing on her tiptoes and standing as close to his body as she could without braking the kiss. Because really? There was so much being short could keep you from other than the top self of the kitchen.

"He lost that fight," Itachi said—once Kisame had exited gratefully to the house and he'd broken the kiss for air—with a smirk.

"Glad I didn't need to use a throwing knife," Luisanna answered grinningly and breathlessly. "I don't think I want to lose you because my aim sucks."

"You want to lose me?"

"That's not what I meant!" she whined.

Itachi grinned his once-in-a-lifetime smile. "I know."


	5. Alone

Itachi leaned over his lover's shoulder, peering down at a book she was resting on her lap. The words were written in the strangest English, without any kanji or Japanese notions to be found. It wasn't hard to tell that Luisanna was a foreigner, what with her dark skin and exotic accent, but it was the first time it'd felt like it, seeing her easily scroll over pages written in this strange language without so much as looking confused _once_.

Luisanna glanced up from the textbook in her lap and glanced up, reaching out for the remote to turn off the TV. "What?" she asked, almost self-consciously. She fingered the frayed pages of her book, absentmindedly reading another paragraph while her boyfriend answered.

"How do you understand that?" His voice was firm and low, smooth like velvet. This wasn't the first time he'd asked something, but it was usually about herself and her family, not about something he wanted to know. He was usually to proud to admit he didn't know something.

The Puerto Rican girl shrugged. "Want to learn? I could teach you."

Itachi straightened himself, the warmth of his breath leaving her neck suddenly very cold. He rounded the small sofa to sit on it, keeping his distance. He wasn't one for PDA, despite the fact that they were alone, just them two and Kisame, who was currently outside doing kami-knows-what. Luisanna cuddled up against his chest, grabbing his cool arm—admiring the sharp contrast between her peanut-buttery brown skin and his milk-white flesh—to pull it around her waist, then propped up the huge text book on his arm. "Okay, look," she said, pointing at two sharply shaped symbols. One consisted of two crisp lines, a vertical and a horizontal one, whereas the other consisted of a straight line and a curved half-circle. "That's a capital T," Anna said, pointing to the two crisp lines, then demonstrated the sound said letter made. Then she pointed at the straight line and half-circle. "That's a lowercase H." She made the sound. "Together, the sound like this. Thhhhh. Try it."

Itachi glared at the strange writing and said, "Th." He smirked at the bright smile on his woman's face.

"Good!" she praised, sounding proud. It was more of herself than of him; she wasn't good at explaining most things, let alone _teaching_. Her long elegant finger pointed at another letter. It looked like a half-circle placed on its side, with a line striking through it. "That's an E." She demonstrated the sound. "When you put those three letters together it sounds like"—the next word she said was English—"_the_." Itachi rose a brow in question. Anna smiled, explaining the word and translating it to Japanese. "_The_," she said again. Then she paused, pulling out a sheet of ruled notebook paper. "Here, let's try your name." She put the kanji for Itachi and then wrote out the English word. Three crisp lines made the first letter; the lowercase version of what Itachi suspected was a T; then a curvy letter with a fat stomach; that so-called H letter; and a straight line with a dot atop.

Itachi rose a brow wordlessly. He pointed at the two foreign shapes. "Those are?"

The eraser-end of the woman's pencil pointed at the fat letter. "That's an A. It makes two sounds, depending on what the word ends with. If it ends with an E"—she pointed to her textbook, where the curious crossed half-circle letter sat—"then it sounds like a long A. If it doesn't then it's a short A." She demonstrated both sounds, waiting for Itachi to copy them. When he did, she smiled. "These two"—she pointed to the three-lined shape and the dotted letter—"are I's. Sometimes they sound like an E. That one, that's a C. It can sound like a K." She scanned her textbook for the letter and pointed at three intersecting lines. "All these letters—I, T, A, C, H, I—make your name. Itachi. It sounds just like the kanji."

Itachi scowled. He leaned against the homely couch, his arms light around his Anna. "Kanji are easier," he decided.

Luisanna scoffed. "My ass," she disagreed. "English has twenty-six letters, and they can all make different sounds. Spanish has twenty-seven or twenty-eight, depending on whether you count Ch or the Ñ, and some people still use the Ll. And you can still make more words with them, whereas with your kanji, there's one for each word." She groaned, making a face. "Do you have any idea how _hard_ it was to learn Japanese?"

"I did it," Itachi teased.

"Shut up."

There was silence, comfortable and warm, as Luisanna continued reading her textbook. She cuddled further into Itachi's chest, flipping pages as she made quick notes, halfheartedly, distracted by the warm body behind her. Her black hair fell into her face, and Anna sighed, blowing it out of her face with an annoyed puff. "_Hair,_" she grumbled to herself.

Itachi's elegantly long, pale fingers reached up to the darkness of her hair to entangle them in it. It was soft, smooth between his fingertips. "I happen to like your hair," he said softly, lowly.

"That makes one of us."

Itachi's low, beautiful chuckle filled the air, masculine and manly. "You're beautiful, you know," he mumbled, pressing his lips into her hair.

A red blush crept up her neck to rest on her cheeks; her dark skin covered most of it, but Itachi had gotten good at knowing the telltale signs of a flushing Anna. It was unmissable: Her eyes dropped, refusing to look at anyone, and she suddenly found floors more interesting than anything. "You say that because I'm not big as a whale yet," she argued lowly, feeling warm all over. She clicked her pen quickly, over and over, loudly.

The nukenin rolled his eyes to himself, pressing a kiss to her hair. "No," he said, forcefully, as if that were the end of that conversation.

"Tch. Idiot," Anna grumbled. Her hand dropped from his to her stomach, feeling the slight round bump forming under the skin of her stomach.

"Well that's not how you talk to a dangerous nukenin _at all_."

Anna smiled widely. "Idiot, idiot, idiot! By the way, that's spelled I-D-I-O-T_, _but you don't know what those letter look like, _do you_?"

A warm smirk crossed Itachi's features. "You're crossing into deadly territory, An-chan."

"Oh, am I?" she wondered. She punctuated her sentence by sticking out her pink, pink tongue. She pulled her textbook and notebook off her lap, placing it on the wood floor carefully—because that damned textbook cost more than this entire house—before flipping herself around in Itachi's arms, facing him. "Just _how_ deadly are we talking here, 'Tachi?" She flipped a leg over him, so she was straddling his legs, a wolfish smile on her face. Her dark hair created a curtain on either side of her face, casting a curious shadow over her face. Her lips had always been dark, a brownish pink, but in the shadow of her hair, they looked a vibrant purple-pink, beautiful and exotic.

Itachi leaned up, keeping his lips a hairbreadth's away from her full ones, the curve of her top lip teasing him. "A _world_ of trouble, An-chan, an entire _world_ of it." His lips brushed lightly over hers, resisting the urge to press them harder against hers. The girl on his lap said something in Spanish—he was getting better at distinguishing her English from her Spanish, as her English was sharp and unforgiving, whereas her Spanish was smooth, soft, and flourishing—and pressed her lips firmer to his. Her top lip was thicker than her bottom lip; it was a tidbit of information that he'd discovered the second he'd first kissed her, and it still thrilled him to know.

He cut the kiss off before he could get too into it. Luisanna wasn't even breathless yet, nor were her lips swollen, though her cheeks were flushed. "You can't kiss your way out of trouble," he warned.

Anna scoffed. "That's what _you _think."

A smirk overtook his features. "You're very welcome to try," Itachi said, shrugging his shoulders as if he wouldn't care either way. Luisanna knew better; she was familiar with his veiled facial expressions. She pressed a kiss to each of the indents on either side of his face and copied his shrug, then flipped herself off of his lap and lifted her book back up to her lap, grinning at the almost unreadable way his face fell.

"Here," Anna said, pointing to a letter that Itachi hadn't seen yet. It was two horizontal lines above and below, connected by a diagonal line. "That's a Z. It isn't used much except in names. My sister, Zenida, has it as the first letter."

"What are the letters in your _alphabet_?"

Anna recited them in a singsong voice. "A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, and Z. Now I know my ABC's, next time won't you sing with me?"

Itachi rose a brow.

"It's a nursery rhyme to teach kids the letters of the alphabet," she explained. "In English, there's a sentence that uses all the letter. 'The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy sheep dog.'" Then she said it again in English, with it's sharp sounds. Itachi decided that, next to Japanese, he preferred it when his An spoke Spanish. English was an ugly language.

"And in Spanish?"

Anna translated the sentence to Spanish. Itachi let the language roll over him like a warm blanket, smooth and soft. Then Anna's accented Japanese said, "I've decided I'm teaching the baby all three languages. Although you should take over the Japanese."

Itachi scowled. "I won't be around for that," he reminded softly, lower than a whisper.

The silence that descended upon them was hardly comfortable.

It was the boricua's soft voice that broke it. "Are you still on that?" she asked, though the answer was as clear as day.

Itachi's answer was just as soft, if not softer. "I told you. I've killed too many. I'm not fit to be around Mi."

Now was not the time to be correcting him in anything other than _this_. "This baby'll _need_ his daddy," she argued.

"You'll be too good a mom," Itachi sighed. "She won't even need me."

Anna's lip was trembling. Her eyes were misting over. "_I _need you," she cried, her voice low and sad, mourning something that wasn't gone yet. "Doesn't that matter to you?"

Itachi reached out to hold her hand. She pulled it away once his fingers brushed the back of her hand, forcing away a sob that threatened to pass through her lips. Itachi tried again, and when she didn't pull away, he threaded his fingers through hers, her warm brown fingers like smooth ribbons of flesh entwined in his. "Look at me," he ordered. His other hand drifted up to her head and gently grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him. Her brown eyes glared at his chin, refusing to look into the dark onyx abyss of his eyes. "I love you. I was thinking about you when I told you this, when I made the decision. You'll be better off. Trust me. You're a beautiful young woman, exotic and lovely, inside and out. You'll find someone else. You don't _need_ me in your life. I'll just hold you back. You can do so much. _So much_. My ghosts and ghouls will just hold you back."

Tears were hanging on the edge of her long dark eyelashes, threatening to jump over. Luisanna rubbed them away before they could spill, disgusted by her own weakness. "Like I don't have my own ghosts or ghouls or demons, Itachi." His name on her tongue was sharp, was a knife. Itachi winced. "I'll admit that they aren't as bad as yours, but I _do _have them. This baby will not be better off with me. Domestic abuse is hereditary, you know. I'm more prone to _it_ than you are to...to doing _that_ again. No one will force you to do _that_ again."

Itachi squeezed the girl's hand. "You're too good for that. You won't do what your father did. I...I'vekilled before _and_ after that accursed day. And I don't want our baby around that."

"_Fine!_" Anna shouted. Her eyes were watering again. "Then I _won't_ let the baby be around you! Hell, you can leave and never come back after this kid is born, just don't go off on a suicide mission! _Just don't do it_. Just please, _live_." Her voice cracked, over and over. "I just want you to live. With or without me. Just live," she whispered.

"I have nightmares every night. Of them. With their dead, cold eyes. Accusing me. Hating me. Wanting me dead." He took a breath, low and soft and full of meaning. "They're right."

"You did what you had to do!"

"I was wrong in doing it."

Luisanna shouted, glaring up at the ceiling, her voice broken in pain. The sound shattered hearts. "So you're just going to leave me here? _Crying_? With _your _kid? Alone?" Her tone was accusing, her voice cracking. She snatched her hand away from Itachi, standing up off the sofa, effectively ripping his hold on her chin. "I hate you!" she cried, eyes moist. She wiped at them furiously. "I hate you _so much_!" She grabbed her books and stomped out of the small house, rubbing her face on her arm to keep the tears away.


End file.
